2004mOcean investigated thephenomenological and constructional possibilities of movement and thick space.It was designed for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ContemporaryExtension (SFMOMA CX) summer event, entitled Diamond Dust. The event theme wasbased on the work and production of Andy Warhol's Factory. Drawing fromWarhol's Silver Clouds, the installation attempts to capture ephemeral movementthrough design and interaction. SFMOMA CX asked that the design form a lightsource for the large lobby otherwise lit only through spotlights andprojections. Though the project's final destination was the museum lobby,mOcean was also shown after its completion at the California College of theArts (CCA). It therefore developed two identities -- one, a giant luminouschandelier that hovered over the entry at SFMOMA, the other an occupiable'social space' of sorts suspended just above ground level at the CCA.
mOcean employs digital visualizationtechnologies, off the shelf packaging products and fiber optics for its designand construction. Using real-time motion capture technology (MOCAP), commonlyused in the animation and gaming industries to precisely map the position ofthe body moving in space, we derived volumetric paths similar to a digitized three-dimensionalMuybridge chronophotograph. The points not only revealed clear movementcorridors, they also described nuanced positions of the body. We saw thesemovements as forming wave-like surfaces based on the head/shoulders,elbows/hips/hands, and knees/ankles. The design developed as an intersection ofthese overlapping point cloud maps -- paths through space, and wave-likehorizontal surfaces. Once fixed, the points were caught in space using end-glowfiber optics hung from aqua-netting with paperclips, and held withintranslucent inflatable packaging sleeves. Though limited in scale, the designattempts to magnify its perceptual performance by defamiliarizing structural,material and constructional logics.
The project also held the constraint of extremephysical temporality -- it was shown for one night only, and needed to beinstalled and de-installed in a matter of hours. Because of this timelimitation, it was built off-site, dismantled, transported, and reassembledon-site the day of the event. Therefore the design research also engages inconstructional and material investigations on how to create an architecture forsuch a transitory condition. The materials choices respond to the strict budgetconstraints, the necessity for a lightweight, transportable constructionalsystem (the sleeves rapidly inflate, deflate, and can be packed flat), and echothe Pop nature of the event. Fiber optic strand was used as a light source thatcould work with plastic as it produces no heat. The strands acted structurallyas lines from which the sleeves were suspended, and the lighted endsilluminated the plastic material with a soft glow of slowly changing colors.Inflated, the sleeves formed a kind of poche that allowed the movement paths tobe voided and made legible, thereby inviting viewers to engage, navigate, andinhabit the volume. And, while this digitized motion is caught and suspendedthroughout the project, the design also encouraged informal interruptions andrandom movement produced by wind at SFMOMA, or by moving people at CCA.
